MARRIED WOMEN TEACHERS

Otago Witness, Issue 4039, 11 August 1931, Page 32

MARRIED WOMEN TEACHERS

POWERS OF EDUCATION BOARDS NO PROVISION FOR DISMISSALS. AUCKLAND, August 4. Judgment in favour of a married woman teacher and against the Auckland Education Board was given by Mr Justice Herdman to-day in an important test case. .The board asked the court to decide whether a section of the Finance Act, 1931, empowered the board to dismiss any teacher who was a married woman. The defendant contended that the Act empowered the board only to refuse employment in future to married women. His Honor said that, to his mind, it was plain beyond all question that the Legislature’s object was to define the board’s power in relation to the appointment of teachers. The subject matter of sub-section 6 was the making of a contract of employment, not its termination. If power to refuse to employ a female married teacher impliedly existed before, it had now been expressly given. He was satisfied that the new proviso concerned appointments alone, and had nothing to do with dismissals. Hie proviso was not a separate enactment, and must be considered in relation to the whole of the Education Acts. The construction he placed upon it involved no absurdity, and the purpose of it was unmistakable.